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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26881645">Niceties Like Coffins (I'll Make You a Cup of Tea)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lavender_Menace/pseuds/Lavender_Menace'>Lavender_Menace</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Six [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Umbrella Academy (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - No Sparrow Academy (Umbrella Academy), Angst and Feels, Fever, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Klaus Hargreeves Has PTSD, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Klaus Hargreeves Needs Help, Klaus Hargreeves-centric, Nightmares, No Incest, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Post-Season/Series 02, Sibling Bonding, Sickfic, Touch Averse Number Five | The Boy, Touch-Starved Number Five | The Boy, ben is dead</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 01:22:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,654</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26881645</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lavender_Menace/pseuds/Lavender_Menace</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Of the six of them, Five and Klaus were the ones who had never really had the chance to grieve for Ben. <br/>Klaus seeks solace in the tangible, Five resolves that he will never be like Reginald. Five is the kind of man who will do anything for his siblings</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ben Hargreeves &amp; Klaus Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy &amp; Klaus Hargreeves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Six [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1925680</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>229</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Niceties Like Coffins (I'll Make You a Cup of Tea)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Klaus finally gets his hug and cry, with his least touchy sibling!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The door to Ben’s room had been closed for the entire first week that Five had spent in 2019. It had been a small detail. Something that he hadn’t pursued, too preoccupied with attempting to literally save the world.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After their return it had remained so. The door remained tightly shut and blended into the hallway as if there had never been another child who had lived and breathed and grown with the rest of them. The small gap between the bottom of the door and the hardwood floor of the hallway had a layer of dust that even Grace had never disturbed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It irked Five slightly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Upon his return he’d gone back to his childhood bedroom to find it immaculately clean. The books and papers that he’d left were mostly undisturbed, but it was clear that he had not been the last person in that bedroom.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Why would Ben’s room have been left undisturbed but not Five’s? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So when he passed by the door to Ben’s room on the evening of April 5th 2019 and found that it was open Five’s curiosity was piqued. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What could he do but look inside? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If only to learn why the room had been opened for the first time in so many years.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five had not been present for Ben’s death (neither the first nor the second). It was something that he had found himself regretting in the past few slow solemn days. Prior to their return on the second of April he simply hadn’t had time to dwell, but it hadn’t stopped him from missing his brother. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When they had been children he and Five had gotten along well, and Five wondered if his gambit to stop the apocalypse would have gone smoother if Ben had been with them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he had been with them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Five had been careless enough to let that fact slip through his fingers. He’d squandered both a potentially valuable asset as well as his final chance to see the one sibling that he just could not save.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Now it was too late. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The door, which had, in truth, been cracked more than truly open, creaked on its hinges as Five pushed past. It was likely the only door in the house with creaking hinges. Five was beginning to suspect that Reginald had for some reason seen fit to ban Grace from acknowledging the room’s existence altogether. He was not prepared for the spike of sadness that ran through his chest at the thought. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The room’s interior was dark. A waning sunset filtered in through heavy gray curtains, illuminating shelves upon shelves of books with colorful paperback colors—Five guessed that they were mostly fiction, his brother had always enjoyed adventures and had been working through a pile of classics when Five had disappeared. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>While the two of them had both been readers they’d always had vastly different taste. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There had been a time when they’d both liked sci-fi.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five remembered passing a copy of </span>
  <em>
    <span>20,000 Leagues Under the Sea</span>
  </em>
  <span> back and forth under their school desks, each taking a turn reading a chapter before moving on, reading the notes they’d scribbled to each other in the margins.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wondered what had become of that copy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something suddenly moved on the bed and Five immediately tensed, shifting into a fighting stance before his eyes had the chance to communicate with his brain. The dim light threw the entire room into shadow and the bed might as well have been a gaping hole into the void for all that Five could make out it’s features.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But the void was breathing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Over the sound of his heartbeat Five could </span>
  <em>
    <span>hear</span>
  </em>
  <span> it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Warily he approached. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As he moved closer Five’s eyes adjusted and he recognized Klaus’ gangly form sprawled ungracefully across the still-covered bed. His arms were wrapped around the pillow and his head thrown back exposing his pale neck in an uncomfortably vulnerable position. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five paused, still wary, if for a different reason. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’d barely spoken to Klaus. Not since that one afternoon just under two weeks ago when he’d coerced his brother into putting on one of Reginald’s suits and attempting to gather information from Meritech. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was another just thing that he hadn’t had time to pursue yet, another thing that had slipped away from him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They might as well have been strangers. He’d disappeared when they were thirteen, reappeared seventeen years later, and then Klaus had lived at least three—possibly four—more years more without seeing Five or anyone else in the family. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They’d grown up together but that was a lifetime of trauma away from both of their perspectives.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five heaved a sigh and stared at his brother on the bed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In a way it made sense that both of them were here. Of all the living siblings Five and Klaus were the only ones who had never really mourned Ben before. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five because he’d only read about it well after the fact in Vanya’s book, months after burying siblings one through four. Even as a scared traumatized child he’d known better to hope that Ben had somehow survived the apocalypse, so when he found out that he had died just three years after Five had disappeared it had been a surprise, but not enough to really shock his already numb psyche.  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus because despite the fact that he had been present at the time of Ben’s death his brother had never really left him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five could only speculate how constant Ben’s presence had been in Klaus’s life, but it was apparent that Ben had haunted Klaus for longer than he’d actually been alive. If he’d been present from when they were sixteen until six days ago when Klaus had attempted to fight his way towards Vanya then Ben's ghost had followed Klaus for a not insignificant seventeen years. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So Klaus was grieving. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Which would partially explain why he was curled up on top of Ben's long-neglected bed with tear traces running down his pale face. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five nearly turned away and left Klaus to grieve in peace. He had never been comfortable dealing with emotions, be they be someone else's or his own. But as he began to turn Klaus's breath hitched. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Where previously it had been rasping but slow, the sound picked up into sharp gasps as Klaus’ limbs shifted on the bed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wasn’t awake—not yet. It was probably just a nightmare.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five could still walk away. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But the tear tracks of Klaus’ cheeks were still wet and his brother looked so devastated. How could he leave one of his siblings in such pain when there was something that he could do to help? Even if it meant stepping out of his comfort zone? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five had killed plenty of people in their sleep. He had never awoken someone who was having a nightmare before. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Less than four feet in front of him Klaus had begun to sob in his sleep.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Enough was enough. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Klaus.” He spoke at normal volume, without inflection. Five wasn’t even sure if he could summon a gentle tone if he’d wanted to. On the bed Klaus began to mutter, just as lost to the waking world as he had been thirty seconds ago.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Where are you?</span>
  </em>
  <span>” It was hard to understand what Klaus was saying (slurring really) through the sleep and the tears but a few words came out clearly. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m sorry, I’m sorry.</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Klaus you need to wake up.” Five stepped closer, hoping wildly that Klaus would somehow sense his proximity and wake on his own. It was dangerous to lose yourself in unconsciousness as most people did, and Five had learned long ago that he was safest as a light sleeper. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus made a sound like a wounded animal and twisted on the bed. One of his long knobby legs kicked out and then hung off of the edge of the mattress, his sweat mixed with tears as his breaths came in quick gasps. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something ugly curled in Fives, chest. It made his own breath quicken and his hands twitch. Inside his body Five’s adrenal glands tried to prompt him into action but it was not the time for fight or flight no matter what his instincts told him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Instead he reached out and grasped Klaus’s shoulder, giving it a hard shake. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Klaus, wake up!” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Klaus awoke. Wild eyes opened and flitted across the room frantically as Klaus shot into a sitting position, gasping for breath. His gasp immediately turned into a hacking cough, which in turn became a fit. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five took a step back, in part to allow Klaus to get his bearings, but also partially to avoid being coughed on. Gross. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn't like the way that his brother hunched in on himself. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It felt wrong to see him make himself small. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus was always so loud, larger than life and glaringly glitteringly visible. When they’d been children Reginald had obviously loathed Klaus’s need for attention, and repeatedly scolded him for seeking it out until the idea had become ingrained into all of their psyches. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Everything Klaus did he did for attention. Klaus was not someone to take seriously. Everything was a joke to Klaus.</span>
  </em>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five wasn’t sure if he’d ever really believed any of it, but enough had sunk in for it to become Five’s knee-jerk reaction when he was being careless. He had just spent weeks not taking Klaus seriously. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Five?” When had his brother’s voice started to sound so defeated? Under the hoarseness from the cough there was an edge of exhaustion that Five was startled to realize reminded him of himself. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five and Klaus had always been polar opposites. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They weren’t supposed to have anything in common. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What are you doing in here?” They said it in tandem, Klaus’s exhausted croak discordant with Five’s sharp too-high voice. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The door was open.” Five responded, directing every subtlety of his body language to indicate that his answer was finished, and that he had no plans to elaborate. Instead he tilted his head and waited for Klaus to give his own reason. Far a short absurd moment he felt like an impatient teacher awaiting a response from an inattentive student.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Instead of replying Klaus looked away, his eyes fixing on some point between his head and the wall.  His breaths were still too fast, and still rasping.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Klaus.” He prompted. “Why are you in here?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus was so far away that he might as well have still been asleep. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes bright with what Five suspected was a fever, he looked disheveled, unwashed and unmoored. Drifting. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There had been times when Five had drifted, alone and surrounded by ash. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five decided that he would need to touch Klaus again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wondered if he would have drifted less, had there been someone around who could touch him when he’d been so alone. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He resolved his courage and rested a hand on his brother’s shivering shoulder. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five was not the sort of man who willingly initiated touch. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five was the sort of man who would do </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything</span>
  </em>
  <span> for his family. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus did not stop shivering, but his breaths slowed, and Five counted that as a minor victory. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I just wanted something.” Klaus said finally, his oft-raucous voice a whisper. “Something to remind me that he was there. I miss him </span>
  <em>
    <span>so much</span>
  </em>
  <span> Five, I thought it would </span>
  <em>
    <span>help</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>From Klaus’s tone Five inferred that it hadn’t helped at all. He began to rub Klaus’s shoulder, ignoring the uncomfortable dampness of his sweat-soaked shirt, and waiting as patiently as he could manage for Klaus to continue.  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But this isn’t really Ben’s stuff anymore, the Ben I knew hadn’t lived here for twenty years.” Klaus shuddered under his touch. “This is just stuff from when he was a kid.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was a desperation to his expression that made the ugly thing in Five’s chest writhe. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> “There’s really nothing left.” Klaus’s hoarse voice finally cracked and he let out a breathless sob, hunched on top of the neat little twin bed. “I don’t know what to do Five.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five knew grief. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Grief had followed him like a  shadow throughout most of his life, and no matter what he’d gained back via time travel, pain like that left an indelible mark upon a person’s mind. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he was a stranger to the grief of others. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And grief was such a volatile thing, the sort of trauma that changed people in unexpected, sometimes unpleasant ways. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He sat beside his brother and wrapped his arm around him, pulling Klaus against his side. The contact was an adrenaline rush, alarming and unfamiliar to his touch-starved brain. Part of him embraced it, lapping at the content like a ravenous animal. Most of him wanted to let go and move away, to reestablish the boundary of personal space that Five had so carefully curated. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five held on, steadying Klaus as he shook and coughed and sobbed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was the sort of man who would do anything for his family. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eventually Klaus cried himself out. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Night had long fallen by the time that Klaus sat up, leaning unsteadily against Five. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thank you.” He said, his eyes were downcast as though he had something to be ashamed of. The statement was followed by a wheezing cough.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Let’s get out of here. I’ve been in tombs less dusty than this.” Five did not miss the way that Klaus flinched at his words but he didn’t understand what part of his sentence could have been upsetting. He filed away the thought to examine later. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Thankfully Klaus didn’t argue and he let Five pull him into a standing position and lead him into the hallway without a fuss. His brother’s steps were unsteady, wavering. Klaus trailed his free hand against any wall or piece of furniture that he could reach until they made it to the door to his bedroom. Then he balked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five looked at him with curiosity and perhaps a hint of impatience. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus stared at the door as though he was looking into his own coffin. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not that he’d had a coffin the first time around. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five had barely been able to bury all of them before they started to rot in earnest, he hadn’t had time for niceties like coffins.  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What now?” Five said, because he was not a patient person by nature.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t want to be alone right now.” The statement was so candid that Five can’t help but feel a bit bowled over. There’s such an open vulnerability to it, the sort of sentence that would have turned Reginald’s eyes hard and cruel. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In another world Five might have responded in the same way, it would have been easy to start responding to the emotions of others with disgust. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’d never be asked to respond in kind if he gave in and allowed his immediate reaction to be scorn. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kindness was infinitely harder. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five would do anything for his family. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wasn’t Reginald. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s not about to drag Klaus screaming into the dark. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As a child he’d never questioned where their father was taking Klaus. They all went off to different parts of the property for their individual training sessions, but none of them had screamed the way that Klaus had. They’d all looked hollow and exhausted upon their return, they’d all acquired strange injuries and unexplained phobias. Five hadn’t questioned it. He’d taken it as a fact of life. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But now standing in front of Klaus’s door, with a hand on his brother’s elbow Five resolves that he will never be like Reginald. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Let’s go downstairs then.” He said, voice toneless and commanding in the way he’d learned at the Commission. “I left my composition book by the coffeemaker and I need to finish some equations tonight.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Klaus turned to look at him, eyes hopeful and fever-bright. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay.” He said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll make you a cup of tea.” </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>comment and let me know if you like this! I really had fun playing with Five and Klaus and might write more h/c with them in the future</p></blockquote></div></div>
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